Björn Brembs

This morning I was
[reminded](https://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=origins-computer-mouse)
of the age of some of the technology we're using. Hyperlinks were
developed at Stanford University and first demonstrated by their
inventor Douglas Engelbart (using the first mouse) in 1968:

On Tuesday, [Douglas Engelbart
died](https://abcnews.go.com/Technology/douglas-engelbart-inventor-computer-mouse-dies-age-88),
even before the scholarly literature was able to fully implement the
technology he invented, 45 years and counting. You might wonder if I
could provide you with evidence for the outrageous claim that such a
standard technology that the internet (also invented by scientists) has
been using for over 20 years cannot be used in the scholarly literature.
Well, just go to any experimental paper and search for the methods
section. Very often, you will find references there to previous work
such as "experiments were performed as previously described (ref)". If
you read this in a PDF file, most likely all you will see then is a
reference to the other paper. If you are lucky and read it in the HTML
version online, you might get to see a link at the reference, sort of
like this one (click for larger version):

[![hyperlinks](https://bjoern.brembs.net/wp/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/hyperlinks-300x62.png){.aligncenter
.size-medium .wp-image-283 decoding="async" width="300" height="62"
srcset="https://bjoern.brembs.net/wp/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/hyperlinks-300x62.png 300w, https://bjoern.brembs.net/wp/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/hyperlinks.png 940w"
sizes="(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px"}](https://bjoern.brembs.net/wp/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/hyperlinks.png)

If you're even more lucky, that link takes you to a paper that you can
read and search for the actual passage where they describe the method.
If you're less lucky, you hit a paywall. But even if you get to read the
paper, there may be just a reference to yet another paper and so on. In
short, chances are, that you will have to spend considerable amount of
time and effort (and perhaps money) if you want to find out what the
authors actually did.

Why can't we just link to the passage in the paper where the procedure
is actually explained and then, when anybody clicks on that link, the
pertinent section of the reference pops up? After all, this is what
everybody else but scientists have been doing for over twenty years.
When will scientists catch up to the rest of the world?


This morning I was reminded of the age of some of the technology we’re using. Hyperlinks were developed at Stanford University and first demonstrated by their inventor Douglas Engelbart (using the first mouse) in 1968:  On Tuesday, Douglas Engelbart died, even before the scholarly literature was able to fully implement the technology he invented, 45 years and counting.

Messaggi di Rogue Scholar

The dysfunctionality of the scholarly literature: hyperlinks